What Is Star Trek Into Darkness’ MC-9321?

Empire has revealed a special fold-out cover for its next issue, featuring director J.J. Abrams and the cast of his upcoming Star Trek Into Darkness along with two new stills from the May release. Fans using the film’s official app, however, have discovered that scanning the magazine’s cover unlocks a third new still with a rather intriguing bit of Starfleet machinery designated MC-9321.

What exactly is MC-9321? At this stage, it’s hard to say for sure, but the size of it seems to suggest an unmanned craft of some kind or, as the presence of Alice Eve’s Carol Marcus hints, a possible precursor to the Genesis device featured in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. If you’ve got your own theory, however, please share it below!

Starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, John Cho, Bruce Greenwood, Simon Pegg, Anton Yelchin, Benedict Cumberbatch, Alice Eve and Peter Weller, Star Trek Into Darkness is directed by J.J. Abrams and hits North American IMAX theaters May 15, going wide on May 17. It will be released a week earlier in the UK on May 9.

You can download the app itself for iTunes, the Google store and Amazon Apps by clicking here.